by Jimi Hunt
It is often recommended as a therapy technique for combating depression. In this case, the idea is to go through the routines of life as if one were enjoying them, despite the fact that initially it feels forced, and continue doing this until the happiness becomes real. This is an example of a positive feedback loop.
I realised the man was right and I was actually doing things in my everyday life that I wasn’t appreciating anymore. I needed to celebrate them and now I would. It sounded ridiculous but I’ve found out that it works. It’s been researched and documented. You’re probably reading this by yourself so this is the perfect opportunity to try it. You’ve just been given a whole bunch of ridiculously interesting information that just might make you a happier person. Right now, I want you to shout ‘Yaaahoooo’ as loud as you can. Feel it? I know you do, and I know it feels good. Right?
That positive feedback loop is amazing. Next time you go for a walk I want you to try something else for me. As you walk down the street I want you to smile at people as they pass. Not a ‘Hey baby, you’re looking hot’ creepy kind of smile, just a normal, simple smile. Watch what happens. People will smile back at you. Then feel what happens. Your smile will grow even bigger on the inside. Feeling even better, you’ll smile at the next person, and the person you first smiled at will probably have smiled at the next person they saw. Wow, look at what you’ve just done—you’ve set off a pretty cool chain reaction of happiness.
In 1995 in a park in Mumbai, Madan Kataria, a medical doctor, began practising ‘laughter yoga’, a combination of laughing and yogic breathing. It starts off with eye contact and childlike playfulness, then there is fake laughter but soon the fake laughter turns to real laughter and it is contagious. Beginning with just five people in a park, the practice has become a worldwide phenomenon. It seems that the body cannot differentiate between fake and real laughter. A session of laughter yoga is hilarious, and you will find yourself laughing the whole time. By the end of it, your stomach will be sore from laughing and it’s like a workout! But the key point is that all that laughter stimulates the feel-good bit of the brain, making you a happier person.
Studies at Ohio’s Kent State University in the sixties proved that laughter for 20 to 40 minutes at a time can completely remove stress hormones from your body. So not only does it make you happier, it makes you less stressed.
JIMI’S LESSON #8: Laughter is the best medicine.
If you don’t like the idea of laughter yoga, you can always go to a comedy gig. In Auckland, The Classic Comedy & Bar has a weekly live show called Big Wednesday. For just $15 you get 10 comedians over two hours and 30 minutes. Brilliant! Not only is it funny, if you go with friends it’s social. It sounds easy because it is.
And that’s what Dr John reiterated. ‘If we get people all fired up with the simplicity of the message, it sets them free from all the endless psychotherapy and other crap that ties them up.’ He was a man talking my language.
All of this made a lot of sense to me, but I wanted to yahoo at more than just drawing a pretty picture. I wanted to yahoo at my old adventures. I wanted to yahoo at amazing, fun, ridiculous things. Lilo was coming up, but I wanted more. I wanted everything.
I looked up at the clock. Just 38 minutes of my one-hour session had passed. We looked at each other slightly awkwardly. ‘Is that it?’ I said. ‘We’ve still got 22 minutes to go.’
‘We can finish here if you want,’ he said, ‘or we can talk about anything else you like.’ Cool, I’m paying for it so I might as well use it; we sat there for another 22 minutes talking about Lilo The Waikato.
He thought it was a genius idea—full of yahoos, healthy living and good times. When our time was up I asked him if I would have to book in for another session.
‘Only if you feel like it,’ he said. ‘Best bet is to only come back if you think you’re not doing too well.’ That was worth a yahoo! He doesn’t want any more of my money? I paid my $200 and drove back to the office. All the way back I was talking to myself. My mind was racing but everything was good again. At last, I had concrete, easy-to-follow steps to take to make myself better. Best of all, I now knew I wasn’t crazy. I just had a chemical imbalance.
I got back to the office, and as I walked through the door, Dad read my face and he smiled. ‘How was it?’ he asked.
‘Brilliant,’ I replied. I sat down and showed him the worksheets Dr John had given me. I explained all the things he’d said, all of his theories, all the things I had to do.
Dad was ecstatic. ‘I would have paid $20,000 for that information,’ he said. (And you, reader, get it all for the bargain price of this book!)
I didn’t care about the rest of the day at work. I wanted to go home. I wanted to see Jo. I wanted to tell her everything. I wanted her to know that everything was going to be alright, that I was going to be alright. For the first time in years I felt good, really good. Amazingly good, and I hadn’t even started doing the things that Dr John had prescribed. First thing tomorrow morning I would start, and that would make everything okay. Yes. This is good.
When I got home Jo was there from the moment I walked through the door, she could tell I was different. Again, I explained everything. I looked her in the eye and told her I was sorry for what had happened but from now on everything was going to be okay.
She was happy, but not as happy as I wanted her to be. I wanted her to be on the same level of happy as I was right then. But I couldn’t really expect that. The proof would be in the pudding and I wanted to prove to her I could be a better person—not just in terms of my depression, but with everything. I wanted to be better at work, I wanted to do courses to make my memory better and I wanted to get fitter. I wanted more. And I was going to get it.
TAKING THE MEDICINE
The following morning I got up and cooked myself a heap of protein for breakfast—ham and eggs—even though I really dislike eating in the morning, especially hot food. I then kissed my wife goodbye and went off to catch the bus to work. At work I got myself a water bottle and placed it on my desk. I really dislike drinking water, but I rationalised it by saying to myself, ‘Jimi, this is your medicine. Dr John has prescribed it. Medicine doesn’t taste good, but it makes you better.’ I’m not one to sip my medicine, I gulp it down as fast as possible, so once an hour I would reach over, grab the bottle of water, drink as much as possible as fast as I could, slam it down and let out an ‘Arrrggghhhh’.
I didn’t like it, but I believed Dr John. I believed it would make me better.
I was feeling better already. Even though I was only one day into my new improved life there was optimism in my eyes. I knew that I was going to get better. I knew I could do the things that Dr John had prescribed. I knew that he was going to be right and wasn’t just talking shit. I knew that Jo and I were going to be great. I knew that the business was going to start doing well again because I would actually be able to do work on it as well as do simple things like answer emails!
I got up every morning and made the same breakfast. I set an alarm on my iCal for my phone and computer that simply said DRINK SOME WATER. NOW!!! I set it for random times during the day and when the alarm went off that’s exactly what I did. I was drinking at least two litres of water every day . . . I did my stretches when I went to the toilet . . . I even yahooed in the office, but only after I had told my staff that if anyone laughed at what I was doing they would be fired.
I also set another lot of reminders with variations of YOU ARE FUCKIN’ AWESOME and YAHOO!!! These reminders are still on my calendar today, and each time I get one I think, ‘Yeah, yeah I am. I’m alright.’ It makes me smile on the inside, which makes me smile on the outside, which makes me feel good.
I hadn’t wanted drugs and I was pleased that Dr John had offered me a solution that didn’t include any. I’d asked him about this, why doctors so readily prescribe drugs. Do they work? What about all the side effects? I already told you that I think depression is a symptom and not a cause and that drugs simpl
y mask the symptoms, but I’m not a doctor, I just have theories. I wanted to know what John thought.
He told me that Prozac (a brand of fluoxetine), now the leading antidepressant medication, gives you a 33 per cent chance of getting better, but as a bonus, you might get a free side order of anxiety, headaches, nausea, diarrhoea, drowsiness, insomnia, decreased appetite, increased sweating, decreased sexual drive, and ejaculatory and orgasmic delay or impairment. If your luck is out you could also develop agitation or irritability, restlessness, impulsiveness, hyperactivity, tremors or a rash. Not to mention allergic reaction; difficulty breathing; swelling of the face, lips or tongue; difficulty swallowing; seizures; problems with balance or coordination; and suicidal thoughts. Wow. No wonder I didn’t want to take antidepressants. Let’s give drugs that could in rare cases cause suicidal thoughts to a depressed person. Is that really a great idea?
So what good are the drugs? Is there any point in taking them? Yes. There is a place for them. If a person is in a very low, depressed place and they can’t be turned around quickly enough and brought out of danger, the right drug will raise their serotonin levels enough so that they are at a point where they can get treatment to be able to help themselves.
So drugs are a backstop. John said the research shows that the people who consistently do the best at beating depression are those who have counselling and do something physical as well, like exercising, improving diet, drinking plenty of water, socialising with friends, and getting out in the sun and being active. The group who does second best are those who get some counselling and take drugs, and the group who does the worst are those who simply take the drugs.
Jimi’s cheat sheet to beating depression, including side effects
Prescription #1: Drink at least two litres of water per day.
Side effect: You stay hydrated and eat less and your skin will glow—girls and guys will find you more attractive.
Prescription #2: Stretch when you go to the toilet.
Side effect: Thirty seconds longer in the toilet may annoy your work colleagues, but you will become more flexible.
Prescription #3: Eat 30 grams of protein in the morning.
Side effect: The number-one tip for weight loss in Timothy Ferriss’s book The 4-Hour Body is to eat 30 grams of protein as soon as you wake up. Apparently it kick-starts your metabolism in order to burn fat. So the side effect is that you lose weight.
Prescription #4: Increase your ‘Yahoo’ moments. Get out there and do more cool shit.
Side effect: There’s the excuse you have been looking for to actually go out and do all the stuff you’ve ever wanted to do. Doctor’s orders!
Prescription #5: Spend more time with friends and socialising.
Side effect: Have a good time.
What I find interesting is that it’s not really all that complicated. Life, in general, isn’t all that complicated. We just seem to have made it so in the past few decades. Our lives have changed. Our lives are changing.
We don’t get as much sun as we used to, and we need sun to produce vitamin D. We need to use our bodies more—sedentary jobs lead to them rotting away. We don’t drink as much water as we should: we have replaced it with coffee, tea, energy drinks, beer, wine, soft drinks and sugary juices. They’re not good for you. We eat crap; we consume mostly processed foods that are, quite simply, killing us slowly. Eat cleaner. Eat better.
I saw this saying on my friend Brendan’s Facebook wall the other day which sums all this up perfectly. It rang so true for me and reminded me that I had a treatment plan I like.
JIMI’S LESSON #9: Medicine is not healthcare. Food is healthcare. Medicine is sickcare.
By the end of the first week of following Dr John’s prescriptions I was feeling great. I really did feel like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I felt there was no going back. I was cured. Cured by a crazy Christian man with a white beard.
Jo and I were talking about things again. We wanted to have kids. She would be an amazing mother and I really wanted to be a dad. We talked about our businesses and how we could make them better. So I was amazed at what happened next—something I wasn’t expecting, something I would never in a million years have predicted.
MY BLACKEST FRIDAY AND THE WEEKEND THAT FOLLOWED
Two wonderful weeks had passed since I’d seen Dr John. Jo and I were sitting together on the couch at home on a sunny Friday afternoon. The neighbourhood was quiet. I was on a high. And Jo told me that after five years, she was leaving me.
She had had enough. She told me she couldn’t take it anymore—the damage had been done. She still loved me but not in the way she used to. She didn’t think that she would ever get that back. She now saw me in a different light. It hurt. It hurt to hear the words she was saying, knowing that she was right. What she was telling me was the truth.
I cried. A lot. She cried. Not quite as much.
I didn’t argue, I didn’t yell, I just cried. I desperately wanted things to go back to the way they were when we first met. I wanted Jo to come with me and visit Dr John.
I wanted to put in as much effort as I could to make our marriage work. Dr John had helped me and I felt so good that I knew I could fix things between us. Jo wasn’t so sure. I couldn’t stop her. I couldn’t reason with her. I knew I had caused her pain, I knew that she had been hurt too much to forgive me, I knew I had made her see me differently, I think I also kind of knew that she didn’t love me anymore, but I didn’t want to lose her.
She took a few of her things and left. I have never felt such pain. I had broken up with girls before, but never like this. I hadn’t wanted to spend the rest of my life with any of the others. I didn’t know what to do. My mind raced. Would she come back? I hoped so, but I didn’t think so—she seemed solid in her decision . . . So I sat and cried. I couldn’t stop.
It was Friday evening and I couldn’t have gone out if I’d wanted to. I felt horrible, but I didn’t want to be alone. It’s a strange time when your wife has left. I needed some friends to help and I am lucky to have a few that I really love and can depend on. But Mark Boyce would be working until about 5 am. His co-best man at my wedding, Cuan, didn’t answer his phone either. I knew Andy was in Wellington that weekend . . .
There was no one else I really felt comfortable calling. No one I could really lay this on, except my parents. But my parents loved the hell out of Jo and I didn’t want to tell them yet. I wanted a mate. I curled up on the couch, covered myself in a blanket, turned on the TV and cried. My world was falling apart. It was two weeks after the best news of my life, but it was all in jeopardy. I felt worse than I had ever felt in my entire life. So I lay there until the early hours of the morning, crying.
I awoke to a lovely Auckland day. The sun was shining, but not on me. I wanted to hide. I wanted to die. I wanted it all to go away. I knew I had to fight this, because I had been in too good a place just 24 hours before to let things come crashing down again. I had to keep going. I pulled myself out of bed, went to the kitchen and cooked myself eggs Benedict. My mind was kind of clear of the depression now and I was thinking more clearly. I knew that the worst thing I could do would be to wallow in my own misery and stay inside all day.
I rang Mark. No answer. I rang Cuan. No answer. I rang Andy. No answer. Fuck. I started going through my list of Facebook friends evaluating them to see if they were good enough friends to drop this on. I needed someone to hang out with all day.
I realised that I didn’t have anyone who fitted the criteria, so I changed tack. Instead of looking for someone that was close to me, I decided I would ask someone I hardly knew. I rang Dave from Philadelphia, a guy from the gym I’d met twice before. He was working here for a year. He answered.
‘Hi, Dave,’ I said. ‘Jo has left me and I have no one to hang out with. Do you want to do something with me today?’
Then he said some of the sweetest words I have ever heard: ‘Sure, Jimi, I’d love to.’ A man I hardly knew was going to hang out with me
all day to make me feel better! Thank you, Dave. Thank you again.
Trawling through my Facebook list I also came across my friend Lachy. Lachy lives in Whakatane in the Bay of Plenty and I live in Auckland so, although we’ve known each other since my first year at university and have been good friends ever since, we hadn’t had much chance to hang out for a while. I needed someone to talk to—someone who knew me and might be able to help me answer my questions. Why had this happened? What could I do? Would she come back? Would it ever be the same again?
I called Lachy. He answered the phone. I was hoping to be cool, calm and collected. I had composed myself before making the call, but as soon as I heard Lachy’s voice I broke down. ‘It hurts, Lachy, it hurts,’ I blurted. Lachy is always good to chat to. He’s just a big cuddly giant with a temperament the absolute opposite of mine—he’s calm and controlled. He asked me if I wanted him to come up. I said no; although I really did want him to come, I wasn’t going to ask him to come so far.
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to come up?’ he said.
‘No. It’s okay.’
‘I’m coming up,’ he said. ‘See you in six hours, but I can’t stay long, I have to be back by lunchtime tomorrow.’ We hung up and I cried again. He’s a real, true and proper friend.
First thing I had to do was pick up Dave to look after me until Lachy arrived. What were we going to do the day after my wife left me? I didn’t even know what Dave liked. Food is a good bet—everyone needs food, especially ice-cream. We went to my favourite gelato place down on the wharf and sat on the benches out front in the sun, talking shit. Talking about anything that wasn’t Jo. Then we went to a bar in downtown Auckland. Even that day I didn’t drink alcohol, although, for a change, I was mildly tempted. If there was ever a day for me to start drinking booze that was it. We were at the bar to play pétanque—that’s what men do on sunny Saturdays, play pétanque. Dave and I threw our boules and chatted about the world’s problems for hours. We talked about Jo, my depression, depression in general and then we moved on to simple chit-chat. It was good. It was great, and as the day progressed I didn’t feel so bad. The hurt was real but I was doing my best to cover it up.
